So I come back to Emby after about 18 months

[ClemFandango 12]

I swore blind that I'd never touch it again after last time, but, annoyingly, I still like the interface and still prefer the simplicity of it over Plex.    So I relent and think "Ok, I'll install it again and see if anything has changed".   So I grab the correct SPK for my Synology DS118 and install it.

So far, so good.   I open the required port in my router and fire it up.   Created myself as the user and added my "Comedy" library as I know that's got a selection of different types of file - 1080p, 720p and some HEVC 4k files as well.   It saves me adding absolutely everything and just lets me check what's going on.

So I complete the setup procedure and give it 10 minutes to correctly load and tag everything and it's all looking fine - so far.    So I go to my Roku TV and add the Emby channel.   It finds the server, as it should, and I sign in.   There's my stuff.

Great.   So I try a 720p movie and it's fine.   Retrieves it, plays it.  No problem.

I try a 1080p film next.  Retreives it, plays it.  Also no problem.

I nervously move the cursor to my go-to 4K film - Groundhog Day.   And, much like Groundhog Day, it happens again.   Starts to retrieve the film and the bar stops about a third of the way in.   So I wait and then, inevitably, get the error "Unable to retrieve content" (Or whatever it actually said).

And then it proceeds to lock up my entire nas drive.  I did this about an hour ago and I still can't log back in to my NAS because, I assume, Emby is just grinding over and over and over and locking up the system because it, apparently, still can't play 4K films and doesn't actually know how to dump out due to an error.

Of course, Groundhog Day plays 100% fine in Plex, which is why I switched to it 18 months ago.

I'm probably going to have to manually power down my NAS just to stop Emby from running so I can get back in to it and, probably uninstall it again and swear I won't touch it - again.

But is it me ?.   Am I doing something wrong or does Emby really not like 4K content ?

 

[Happy2Play 8240]

18 minutes ago, ClemFandango said:

But is it me ?.   Am I doing something wrong or does Emby really not like 4K content ?

I really depends on the playback method, but from what you have describe it sound like the NAS is choking transcoding the media.  Would need to see server and ffmpeg log if present.

I would assume the other guys take a different approach in transcoding the media.  Or they are using a custom player that can handle the media.  There are just to many variables.

[ClemFandango 12]

1 minute ago, Happy2Play said:

I really depends on the playback method, but from what you have describe it sound like the NAS is choking transcoding the media.  Would need to see server and ffmpeg log if present.

I would assume the other guys take a different approach in transcoding the media.  Or they are using a custom player that can handle the media.  There are just to many variables.

Thanks for the reply.  I think this is why Plex works well for me because it can directly play the content rather than transcode anything.   I literally select Groundhog Day through Plex and it's playing in seconds.

[arrbee99 1551]

Not a very knowledgeable reply coming up, so apologies in advance, but Emby plays 4K movies. I have played a rip of 4K Groundhog Day disc direct playing, but thats from a Ryzen 3700 via ethernet to a 2019 Shield. But I have no idea what happens on a DS118. Can it supply the data rate required ?

btw are you using the stable or beta version of Emby ?

(you people type too quickly...)

[Luke 36999]

Hi, did you explore the stats feature in the video player to learn why it is transcoding?

[Happy2Play 8240]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

Hi, did you explore the stats feature in the video player to learn why it is transcoding?

I am guessing OP never gets that far.  So we would need to see ffmpeg and server logs.  But would assume the other guys use the same Roku player we do though.

[ClemFandango 12]

20 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

I am guessing OP never gets that far.  So we would need to see ffmpeg and server logs.  But would assume the other guys use the same Roku player we do though.

You're quite correct, I never get that far.   I still can't get back into my control panel so I'm going to have to manually power down the drive now.

I'm also using the stable version as well.

[ClemFandango 12]

And I should point out as well that I pressed the power button on my drive just after I posted that 20 minutes ago and it's still trying to power down because of this - which also happened last time.

I will likely just have to pull the power lead if it doesn't power down properly.

[ClemFandango 12]

Ok, so I eventually regained access to the drive and ran the Roku App to check the settings.  I enabled the "Allow HEVC" option and tried Zombieland, which I also have in 4K HEVC.

That actually retrieved and played first time, quite rapidly as well.

So I'm thinking "Hey cool, perhaps that's it?".

Chose Groundhog Day again and .. no ..

The bar got about a third of the way again and I got the "No Content" error.   I did actually get a similar error with another regular 1080p film as well funnily enough.

Do I enable the logs in the Plex Server on my NAS or on the app ?

I'd really like to solve this once and for all if possible.

[speechles 1917]

I am going to venture a guess that there were PGSSUBs involved which would require burning into the video stream. It might also be converting the audio to a compatible format. The burning of the subtitles would possibly bring your DS118 to its knees. Coupled with converting audio it might not be converting at a fast enough FPS to even become playable. It might eventually time out with "No content available" unable to continue.

On your Emby server inside the "subtitle" settings for that user. You need to change the "subtitle mode" to "no subtitles" and make sure "Remember subtitle track selections" is checked. Then when first starting an item it will never burn in subtitles. If you enable subtitles once playing they will be remembered the next time you play. But when you originally first play an item they will come without subtitles initially. This should help your DS118 play those files.

Edited April 4, 2021 by speechles

[ClemFandango 12]

31 minutes ago, speechles said:

I am going to venture a guess that there were PGSSUBs involved which would require burning into the video stream. It might also be converting the audio to a compatible format. The burning of the subtitles would possibly bring your DS118 to its knees. Coupled with converting audio it might not be converting at a fast enough FPS to even become playable. It might eventually time out with "No content available" unable to continue.

On your Emby server inside the "subtitle" settings for that user. You need to change the "subtitle mode" to "no subtitles" and make sure "Remember subtitle track selections" is checked. Then when first starting an item it will never burn in subtitles. If you enable subtitles once playing they will be remembered the next time you play. But when you originally first play an item they will come without subtitles initially. This should help your DS118 play those files.

Thankyou for this.   I've just turned the subtitles off and I've also turned off "Allow subtitle extraction on the fly" as well.

I've made sure that the "Burn in SSA Subtitles" in the Roku app is also turned off, so i'm going to try it now .. stand by

... and the same thing has happened.  A third of the way up the 'Retrieving' bar and it's hung again.    I did enable error logging this time though so when I restart the NAS (AGAIN.....) I'll see if i can post the contents.

[ClemFandango 12]

Ok, these are the most recent log files if they are of any help

There does seem to be this error that re-occurs and mentions subtitles ..

Quote

[matroska,webm @ 0x1a695f60] Could not find codec parameters for stream XX (Subtitle: hdmv_pgs_subtitle (pgssub)): unspecified size
Consider increasing the value for the 'analyzeduration' and 'probesize' options

ffmpeg-transcode-c52c52fa-7e0c-417d-803e-469a2e0c9727_1.txt embyserver-63753139888.txt ffmpeg-transcode-c52c52fa-7e0c-417d-803e-469a2e0c9727_1.txt embyserver.txt

Edited April 4, 2021 by ClemFandango

[speechles 1917]

It is the amount of subtitles inside your media.

/volume1/video/Comedy/Groundhog Day.mkv

{"Codec":"PGSSUB","Language":"tha","TimeBase":"1/1000","CodecTimeBase":"0/1","DisplayTitle":"Thai (PGSSUB)","DisplayLanguage":"Thai","IsInterlaced":false,"IsDefault":false,"IsForced":false,"Type":"Subtitle","Index":37,"IsExternal":false,"IsTextSubtitleStream":false,"SupportsExternalStream":false,"Protocol":"File"}],"Formats":[],"Bitrate":41415789,"RequiredHttpHeaders":{},"ReadAtNativeFramerate":false}

Streams 3-37 (35 of them) are subtitles in your media. This is causing ffprobe to bail because it cannot analyze the file. The m3u8 the Roku receives is never completed. It is literally trying to map all 35 of those subtitles streams as VTT into the manifest.

You want to remux that file with MKVToolNix GUI and remove all those subtitle streams if using the Roku. Rely on external SRT that can be side-car streamed with the media. That will be your best bet to keep your DS118 happy. Remove any internal subtitles you find.

[ClemFandango 12]

I must confess, I did find it rather unusual to see that many subtitle streams.  I suppose having used Plex for so long it was never something I'd ever considered looking for.

I don't need subtitles anyway as I always turn them off on everything and the one or two films I have that need subtitles for non-english parts do have the seperate SRT file in the same folder as well.

I'm just rebooting the nas again and i'll try the solution.   Thankyou

[ClemFandango 12]

Well the short story is, it didn't work.

I found that I had Die Hard in 4K and that had even more subtitle streams, including director's commentary, than Groundhog Day so I used MKVToolNix to strip out everything bar the film, the audio and the chapters and I've just tried playing that and the same thing happened as Groundhog Day.

I even removed the library and re-added it just to ensure it properly re-scanned it but it still hung.

Unfortunately the ffmpeg log file doesn't seem to have been written to fully so I'm going to have to try that again later on.   I've attached what did write but it's not a lot to go on unfortunately.

embyserver-63753156744.txt ffmpeg-transcode-384dd0ce-7c50-42e7-a149-2a45e1069ad2_1.txt embyserver.txt

[speechles 1917]

&TranscodeReasons=ContainerBitrateExceedsLimit

Is it possible you can raise the bitrate constraint? That appears to be the only thing that would cause the transcode and make this fail for you. In the video quality of the Roku app you want to raise that up to the maximum. Then try to play this same file. You should find success.

Edited April 4, 2021 by speechles

[Happy2Play 8240]

4 minutes ago, speechles said:

&TranscodeReasons=ContainerBitrateExceedsLimit

Is it possible you can raise the bitrate constraint? That appears to be the only thing that would cause the transcode and make this fail for you. In the video quality of the Roku app you want to raise that up to the maximum. Then try to play this same file. You should find success.

Is the default 35Mbps?

&VideoBitrate=34808000&AudioBitrate=192000

 

[speechles 1917]

Yes. Roku advertises their device officially at 35Mbps so we start there. You can raise it as high as 110Mbps when you go into settings. When users do that it is on them and not us. That is why the default is very conservative with using AUTO on the LAN.

When we were default to 110Mbps new users were complain of constant buffering non-stop. If it is too low you get complaints of constant need to transcode from most users. The 35Mbps is that safe place in the middle to start. Once you want faster you can go there it just won't happen when using AUTO.

Edited April 4, 2021 by speechles

[ClemFandango 12]

Well now.   I chose 110mbps on both the server and the Roku app and it played.   It did glitch badly for 2 or 3 seconds at the start - the screen was green and blocky but it cleared and the movie started.   I couldn't tell you if it would buffer or anything like that, but it did play.

I dropped the speed down a few times and it still kept playing, but when I got to "4K - 60Mbps" on the server and 35Mbps on the Roku app, it stalled and hung again so that was another half an hour waiting for the Nas to power down and reboot. Again.

If it's of interest, this is the video information from Plex for Groundhog Day if it might give any clues as to a decent setting.

• Codec HEVC
• Bitrate 40366 kbps
• Bit Depth 10
• Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
• Coded Height 2080
• Coded Width 3840
• Color Primaries bt2020
• Color Range tv
• Color Space bt2020nc
• Color Trc smpte2084
• Frame Rate 23.976 fps
• Height 2076
• Level 5.1
• Profile main 10
• Ref Frames 1
• Width 3840
• Display Title 4K (HEVC Main 10 HDR)
• Extended Display Title 4K (HEVC Main 10 HDR)

I've just got the nas back up and reset both the server and app to 60mbps and it does play again, aside from the glitching at the start.   I don't know if it makes any difference but I'm will cabled up with my setup in my living room.   The Roku TV has an ethernet cable in the back and my broadband speed is 50mb.

Edited April 4, 2021 by ClemFandango

[ClemFandango 12]

So is it worth me just maxing out the settings on both the server and the app to ensure everything plays ?

I tried playing Die Hard earlier with the higher settings and that played fine, and there was no glitching at the start either.   I could fast forward with it as well and it wasn't a problem.

I'm willing to do it if it means I can move to using Emby full time again, but if anyone can advise of any potential hiccups then I'd be grateful.

[arx237 9]

I do not have a roku anymore but on my shield connected directly to the tv I was experiencing that glitching at the start and at certain places throughout some movies that I was able to fix by setting the app on the shield to local downmix to stereo. It played a whole lot nicer with 4k content too.

 

I have no idea why this worked.

 

 

[Happy2Play 8240]

Since you have media that is beyond Roku's suggested Max (Emby's set default), yes you would have to apply the quality setting to higher then your highest media bitrate.  

[ClemFandango 12]

8 hours ago, arx237 said:

I do not have a roku anymore but on my shield connected directly to the tv I was experiencing that glitching at the start and at certain places throughout some movies that I was able to fix by setting the app on the shield to local downmix to stereo. It played a whole lot nicer with 4k content too.

 

I have no idea why this worked.

 

 

Unfortunately you can't do this on the Roku app.

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by ClemFandango

[Luke 36999]

12 hours ago, ClemFandango said:

Unfortunately you can't do this on the Roku app.

 

Hi, have you tried setting the quality setting in the Emby Roku app?

[ClemFandango 12]

18 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, have you tried setting the quality setting in the Emby Roku app?

I did.  I set the quality in the Emby Roku app and the server to 110mbps and the stuff did play.   Die Hard played fine and Groundhog Day also played.

The problem I've been having this afternoon though is that I've been trying to add my stuff back in to Emby in an attempt to start properly using it again and it's just making it very, very hard.    It seems like every time it scans a library, it crashes.  I've had to reboot my nas and restart emby countless times.   When I finally gain access to it again, the content is there and seems ok but it seems like any changes I make cause it to just go off and hang - or crash.

It's now doing .. something .. to my nas at the moment as I haven't been able to access it for the last ten minutes.  Although literally as I type, DSM has suddenly appeared again and I can now access the nas again.   I'm wondering if it's still populating everything in the background and I need to give it until tomorrow to just work through everything,.

If i look at the "Libraries" tab on the menu, a lot of my movie and tv libraries have clearly finished - the thumbnails of each library are there - but I have two other libraries that don't have any thumbnails at all so maybe they're the problem?

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by ClemFandango